The next day was massively busy, a constant air of low-grade panic was hanging over the entire mansion complex. Even sneaking off to one of the quieter hallways didn't help.

As it turned out, the attempted hijack of the van was the last straw in a whole mess of back-and-forth blows being thrown. Now Mr Bishop himself was coming over to hash things out.

You could tell things were serious from the word go, every single member of the Knight crew, myself included, was wearing a hugely bulky stab-vest. Small enough to be concealed under a jacket but still made movement pretty difficult. When I asked the quartermaster what they were for, he didn't even speak, just held up a vicious-looking metal spike that looked like something used in mountain climbing. About eight inches long and round with a serrated blade jutting out the side and a wide, flat top.

This, apparently, was a stake, something that could punch through a ribcage to puncture the heart. Nasty.

I was standing at the front door of the mansion, freezing cold even through the amount of layers I was wearing. Me and eight other guards standing at intervals across the whole width of the house from corner to corner all looking down the driveway and out into the darkness.

I was there for at least twenty minutes before two tiny pins of light rounded the corner at the far end of the huge gravel path that leads to the gates and the front door. A trio of cars was coming our way.

A metallic snap sounded off to one side of me, followed by two more. Movies had taught me to dread that sound, it was almost surreal hearing it in person. One of the other guards stepped forward with something in his hands. Smooth black plastic, snub nose and single-point sling attached to where the stock should have been. The ever-present MP5k. Each of the four standing around me carried one, safeties off.

I hadn't been given a gun. Not that I'd know what to do if I did. Still, I'd feel safer not being the only guy who's unarmed.

The cars pulled up, more huge BMW's with after-market tinted windows, even the men inside dressed similarly to us but with the red lapel stripe replaced with a blue one. I had to force myself not to stare in confusion. It felt almost contrived to have a red team and a blue team. Not that I was about to question it. I felt like sneering at something that was likely a point of pride was a good way to get shot.

The usual parade of Ross Kemp lookalikes filtered out, all with machine pistols of their own. The guards on both sides began to stare each other down made me question if this was a diplomatic mission or a pissing contest.

Then, at last, the man himself stepped out. Mr Bishop. A frankly irresponsibly tall man with impossible proportions. His face looked as if the skin had been stretched across the bones with no fat or muscle between the two. He had paint-white hair, icy eyes, and a coat that was something straight out of a Victorian museum. All gold buttons and silk, it only lacked the top hat to finish the look.

Mr Bishop scanned the facade of the mansion along with the guards at the door without a word, not even making eye contact with anyone before drifting forward and stepping through into the building proper. His retinue followed along, both sets of guards menacing one another with their weapons.

My brain stopped for a second and forced me to wonder what good bullets would do against eight Vampires and a Dragon but then again seeing a live weapon pointed at me still set off the alarm bells that action films and violent video games had given me so I suppose it was working.

Half the Bishops stayed outside with our own guards while half the Knights, myself included, followed Mr Bishop inside with the kind of mechanical efficiency that made me think these meetings were some kind of tradition.

I had been ordered to “keep an eye” on Mr Bishop. Which basically entailed following him around the mansion with a microphone plugged into my collar and catch anything that could give away his plans. I wasn't hopeful we'd get much.

The group slowly filtered through to the main hall, where Mr Knight was standing at the base of the stairs. Both the bosses extended their hands at the same time in a strangely mechanical way. This was definitely some kind of tradition.

“Charles.” Mr Knight greeted, his expression like stone.

“Trevor.” Mr Bishop responded, equally non-emotional.

They started talking diplomacy right away, the two of them lead me and one of Bishop's guards into a side room. It was dark, the lights turned right down.

Two high-backed leather armchairs were at either end of a small table with a spread of little high-class snacks, olives and stuff like that with a selection of drinks that I never knew existed.

“Can I offer you a drink?” Mr Knight asked, sitting in one of the chairs and on-cue a generic-looking lean woman in her thirties stood just outside the door. She was lean to the point of being underfed, pale with dull, sunken eyes highlighted with dark bags. But she wasn't ragged, she wore nice clothes, makeup and had her hair properly kept.

I knew a Ghoul when I saw one, they were people who had, either willingly or not, been infected with a Vampire's blood, functionally making them a slave of the one that turned them, though depending on a few things the Ghoul could even benefit from the arrangement.

In the small street-Vampire circles I had moved in before I had only met a few Ghouls. They were hard to keep around for long on the streets, missing person's reports, concerned families and nosy neighbours would quickly track them down. I guessed the Families had enough political pull to get around those.

This woman was on the lower end of the sliding scale of Ghoul, the way she swayed slightly drunken from one foot to the other and her dull, bleary eyes made it clear that she had been through a whole lot before she had gotten here. The shirt she wore had a low-set neckline that was more to expose her throat and collarbone rather than her chest, the scars all over her neck and shoulders said she wasn't much more than a walking blood-bank.

“Oxford, 1983.” Mr Knight said like he was presenting the house vintage.

Bishop made an admiring murmur and seemed to almost glide over to the Ghoul without moving his feet. He loomed over her, spreading his thin lips into a not-smile that was just plain unsettling to even be in the same room as. He took her hand in his, his skeletal palm over the back of her hand, twisted it around and raised her wrist up to his lips in a motion similar to those hand-kissing gestures you see in those inexplicably popular period dramas.

Faster than she could react, Mr Bishop sank his teeth into either side of her wrist. The Ghoul flinched, clenching her jaw to stop herself from shouting, but made no effort to pull her arm away from his lordship.

Neither moved for a few seconds until finally a single drop of the woman's blood slipped free of Bishop's lips and dropped onto the carpet, leaving a perfect red circle where it landed. Bishop slowly pulled his mouth from the Ghoul's arm and wiped the excess from his lips with a single finger.

“Thank you, Lord Bishop.” The Ghoul whined, her face pink, sweating and arm shaking in pain. Mr Knight dismissed the Ghoul with a nod and wave of a single finger.

“You keep fine stock, Trevor.” Mr Bishop complimented, turning back to Mr Knight suddenly looking a few years younger, with a lot more colour in his cheeks. Mr Knight took the compliment with a smile, motioning to the chair opposite him which Mr Bishop placed himself in, both the men slouching regally.

I took up guard to the left of Mr Knight's chair, and the other guard by Mr Bishop's. And the next hour-and-a-half of political talk between them sailed clean over my head. Barely got a word of what they were saying. All talk about old treaties and agreements that made my head spin. As far as I could tell, Knight was concerned Bishop was overstepping his mark, and if there was a problem that could lead to outright war between the families, then they should settle it before the next Council of Lords. Good god if there was a way to make vampire mafia warfare sound boring they were doing a great job.

But, to use the old cartoon supervillain line, I wasn't being paid to think or to give my opinion. I was there to stand look intimidating at the other guy. So I did, glaring at him while trying not to let my mind wander off.

Time passed, both of us guards were getting bored, and his staring became slowly sympathetic and we shared a short moment of agreement on how this was going nowhere.

Another hour of diplomacy passed and grandly concluded with no progress in either direction. The two leaders stood up from their chairs, shook hands, and Mr Knight indicated to me. “Mitchell here will guide you to the guest house.” Mr Bishop gave me the side-eye but fell in behind me as I lead the way, the Bishop guard taking up the rear.

We moved in silence, winding through the maze-like main house to the rear door then down a long gravel path to the guest house that backed up against the far wall of the property. It was quaint, a little countryside-style cottage compared to the monolith of the main building and with ivy carefully grown over select surfaces to give it the exact amount of rustic-ness.

Something wasn't right. There was supposed to be two more guards here, but there was nobody. No sign that anybody had been here to begin with. Other than the front door being half-open and the porch light turned on. I held out a hand, telling the other two to stop and carefully looked over each window in turn, searching for movement.

There's a certain sensation when you know somebody is standing close by. That kind of constant spatial awareness where you can tell if something is moving close to you. Ever had that completely vanish?

Somehow, I was now totally alone. The trails left in the gravel suddenly ended a little ways behind me. There was a crash, something being knocked over inside the house. Before I could even register what was going on I had run in and pulled my gloves off, stuffing them into my coat pockets.

I had run into the dining room of the house, the table had been smashed to bits with fragments of ceramic and cutlery sent everywhere. The far door to the kitchen burst open and a massive bat the size of a large dog darted through, suddenly freezing in mid-air when it saw me. It whipped around and in under a second had changed into the shape of Mr Bishop with a look of absolute disgust on his face. “You-!” Was as far as he got before the sledgehammer met his back, knocking him flat on his face. A man stepped out of the darkness of the next room and drove a spike into Mr Bishop's back, then winding up for another swing of the hammer to finish the job. I recognised him instantly. That drunkard from the warehouse, this time standing properly upright with a terrifying glint in his eye. His sleeves were rolled to the elbow, with deep blue scales identical to my own stretching from finger to ear, completely covering his lower jaw.

This whole time I was frozen solid, utterly unable to move from the spot. My mind raced back and forth with two voices in my head answering the question over and over. “What do I do?”

“Run away.” Answered one voice, faint and already far away from the danger. “Run away and hide until it all makes sense again."

“Fight.” The other demanded, grabbing me by the shoulders and shoving me forward. “FIGHT!”

It was too late to do anything about Bishop, the sledgehammer had forced the stake clean through him and buried it into the cold stone floor, splitting it and reducing the mob boss to a pile of gently smouldering ashes. The assassin had begun rambling about something or other with a smug grin plastered across his stupid face. I didn't get much since the adrenaline dulled any sounds down to a gentle drone and buzz. All I caught was the phrase “-son of the Queen's Regards” before I punched him in the ear.

He hadn't expected that. He recoiled and dropped his hammer, giving me an opening to follow up with a shoulder to the chest, sending us both crashing through into the kitchen. He made it back to his feet before I did, even doing a flashy little backwards roll while I scrambled back up from all fours, swinging the whole time. Trouble was, this guy was good, he had training and practice and I didn't. Every time I lashed out I hit nothing but empty air with him weaving like a pro boxer. That was, until, I ducked down low and slammed into him, wrapping my arms around his legs at the knee and squeezing them together. While the assassin was flailing around to keep his upper half stable I buried my shoulder into his gut and lifted. I don't know what made me think I could lift a full grown man, but I managed it. I straightened my back and hauled him up, physics kicked in and the assassin toppled, going over my back and hitting the floor, the wind driven out of him.

By the time I had turned and swung, he was gone. And my claws just left white tracks on the stone floor. I didn't have time to t what had just happened, the Bishop guard had finally decided to show himself, hurling out a litany of swear-words among bursts of gunfire. Four shorts slammed into my chest and the switch in my head went hard from “fight” to “flight” and I went into a full sprint. I was lucky enough that there was a backdoor to the guest house that got me to the base of the wall. I didn't even slow, jamming my claws into the creeping vines and climbed. Another burst of gunfire somewhere behind me sent fragments of stone flying against the side of my head, but I didn't stop, I didn't look back.

Somehow I manage to mount the wall and hurled myself over the top and jumped in one motion, plunging off the side and hitting the overgrown grass on the other side of the wall. Didn't stop, didn't slow down, kept running.